Drop me an e-mail if you have nice screenshots, useful shapes or
free iconsets.

Creating New dashboards

Dashboards can be created by the new tab button next to the open dashboards.

Dashboards and GeoMaps

A normal Dashboard is just a plain empty canvas where elements can be placed. Dashboards
can have a background image which can be scaled and moved.

GeoMaps do have a openstreetmap background layer where icons and widgets can be
placed on. While the map is locked with the map lock button in the top left corner
you can work with the dashboard just like a normal one. When the map is unlocked, then
you can navigate the map with dragging and zooming. The world button brings you
back to the default view which can be changed by Set Map Center from the context
menu.

Geo Maps do not store x / y point coordinates for your icons, instead when placing
an icon, the position is converted to latitude and longitude coordinates. So when
navigating on the map, all icons will stay at their geo coordinates.

Dashboard Permissions

Dashboards are stored as single maps, but they belong to a specific user. This means
if you create a dashboard, only you are allowed to see it. Administrators (contacts with
the configuration information and system commands role) can see and edit all dashboards.

Till release v1.86 you could set a dashboard public, so everyone got read-only permissions
to that dashboard. Starting with v1.88 a fine granular permission system has been introduced
which allows you to assign read-only and read-write permissions to specific contactgroups.

Changing permissions is possible in the permissions tab of a dashboard. Double click the
dashboard title to open the settings or choose settings from the context menu.

Export / Import

Dashboards can be exported from the dashboard settings window. The import is
available on the same settings window.

Icons, Widgets and Labels

In general you can place icons and widgets on the canvas.

Widgets

Widgets are framed window like panels which contain grids, graphs and all kind of data.

Some widget examples are:

Servicetotals Pie Chart

Mine Map

PNP Graphs

Logfiles

Business Process Graphs

Embedd content from other sites with the generic url panlet

Icons

Icons represent the state of a single host, service or filtered query and are
usually placed on a map or background image.

The state can be represented in various types:

image icon

speedometer

pie chart

traffic lights

arrows and shapes

watermarks and lines

Labels

Every icon and widget can have a label. Labels can either be static
text or dynamic. Icon settings can either be changed by double
clicking the icon itself or by opening the context menu with the right
mouse button.

All examples can directly be used by adding any icon widget and copy &
paste the source in the 'Source' Tab. Then hit the 'Apply' button.

On the right side of the label input field is a 'Wizard' button which
helps you creating labels in no time. The examples can be put into the
textarea by clicking on them.

Editing Dashboards

Editing Dashboards has been made as easy as possible. However there are a few
hints and tricks which make things even easier.

Cloning Widgets and Icons

Icons

Once you have configured an icon the way you want, you can clone it from the
context menu. Just right click on the icon and select Clone from the menu.
Then click where you want to place the clone. With the Copy and Paste from
context menu, it is even possible to copy icons from one dashboard to another.

Widgets

Beginning with the release v1.88 it is possible to clone widgets too. In the
panel window header, there is a clone button on the top right. After clicking
that button, you have to choose the location of the cloned widget.

Restore Points

Since the release v1.88 it is possible to set up to 5 manual restore points. Whenever
you made a mistake and want to revert the changes made, just select that restore point
from the context menu.

Besides the manual restore points, up to 5 automatic restore points will be created
every 10 minutes.

Icon Widget Appereance Types

Icon

Icons are the basic appearance type and are useful for host/service
status as well as hostgroups and servicegroups. In case of hosts and
services they will change the icon according to the state of the
host/service.

Hovering the icon will show the host/service details or in case of
groups and filters a summary report for the set of hosts/services.

It is possible to choose a global iconset for a dashboard in the
dashboard settings itself. You may then override the iconset for each
icon individually.

Shape

Shapes are kind of svg image. They usually contain one closed path
which is filled with the color of its state. Again either host/service
states are possible or summary states for groups and filtered sets.

Shapes gradient color can be based on performance data when using a
single host or service as icon source.

Creating own shapes is easy. Use the svg editor of your choice, for
example inkscape, create a path and open the saved svg file with a
text editor and look for the path:

Trend Icon

The Trend Icon determines the current trend based on collected performance data
and displays an arrow (or other icons) if the current delta value hits certain
thresholds. The Trend Icon can fetch initial performance data from pnp4nagios
and will then collect performance data with every status refresh.